Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

I hate to tell you that Kelly Harrison was in a bad flying accident and he did not survive.
He was flying tandem with an 11 year old boy who also perished. They were towing aloft behind a pick up truck on a dry lake south of Las Vegas. (Jean?)
The line did not release and the truck made a sharp turn, upsetting his flight.
This is all I know about the accident. I saw this on KITV4 News tonight here in Hawaii.
Kelly was a life long, talented pilot who made his home in Kamuela, Hawaii and he owned a Kayaking business in Kona. I had the good fortune of meeting him once but never got to fly with him.

Greblo Brandon Ken Richard and others set up the scooter tow and ran 2 tests. There are at least 2 backups to the rope release so its hard to see how this could have happened. I read the Nevada towing vehicle turned around and drove the other way. The pilot could have released then. I don't know if there was an observer on the back of the truck. I do know in 2018 all new cars will have a $40 dashboard screen and back up camera which might have made all the difference in this case.

Additionally:

Special recreation permits are required for commercial use on federal land, according to the BLM.

“This company did not have one,� BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said Tuesday.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevad ... h-blm-says

Maybe the recommended age should be at least 15 unless the child has completed a preliminary study first.

http://www.mynews3.com/mostpopular/stor ... MG9tw.cspx

The brief moments of trying to catch flight turned horribly bad in just seconds. "The truck took a turn ... the turn caused a little bit of slack in the line ... and when the slack came out of the line it yanked the glider and caused the glider to stall and nose dive into the ground," Corbin Moorhead said.

This is the saddest thing I've seen in a long time. Kelly was a first rate, long time pilot and my first instructor and I would not be flying now if I hadn't met him. I hope we get a clear story of how this happened. It must have been low to stall and hit the ground. How could the driver be stopping and turning?